Elderly deranged lady

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

Been meaning to vent about this person for a while now. She's insane. Clearly the entire cluster A with a whole host of other psychiatric disorders combined.

She breaks so many laws, yet our law enforcement does nothing. She roams the street harassing people, staring them down, yelling abuse, calling them names. She carries a camera and will take a picture if she feels like it. For what purpose? To provoke of course. She will yell out 'psycho' to every car that passes.

What's so effed up about this, is that I'm sure residents get so fed up with her behaviour, they have no choice but to move elsewhere, because she is enabled by the police, by our governing bodies.

What blows me away is she is relentless. She never tires of her behaviour. Never. It's so toxic that you can just see how she gets off on it. Any reaction she can get and engagement from others is what she is seeking. There's no humanity left in this woman. I actually fell over out near the road, and she saw me fall over. Did she come over to see if I was okay? I won't answer that.

She will roam on the road at night in a dressing gown and it's literally like seeing a ghost, only it's a real person and she has no regard or care for cars passing by. It's a miracle she hasn't been hit.  And that's the problem, all it takes is someone to get so fed up with her antics that they do deliberately hit her, and she is injured or dies. And that person driving may be in quite a lot of trouble. All because this sick woman roams the street at all hours, is enabled to do so and the driver that hits her is in trouble. She's not going to be in trouble, she's an elderly lady who doesn't know what she's doing. But she does know exactly what she's doing because she is compelled to and gets away with it.

Residents have tried in the past to vote for her to be evicted. Our state tribunal took no action. She should be in a psychiatric facility, but of course there are no beds available.

You can't come home to this block of flats without her approaching your car and harassing you and then following you to your door. As I said, police don't want to know about it, the body corporate don't care because they don't have to live here. We just have to tolerate it because nobody will do anything about it. I can't walk my girlfriend to her car without being harassed by this lady and having a picture taken. I want to grab that camera from her and smash it to pieces in front of her.

I could write a novel on this lady, but I have to keep these posts brief. I probably haven't even outlined the situation clearly but oh well.

[GoodPesto]

Hi Iwnrh,


you definately managed to get the energy across, jeeeesus.
You weren't asking for advice but I had a few ideas with regard to how to approach this. If you were interested, I would need some info about the attempts with the authorities. Would you mind sharing a bit about the steps you or others took? In what way was the police involved?
Are you living in a rural area, a town, a city?
Trying to crack that nut from a sociological perspective to see if there might be a way to support, if you're up for it.

Best wishes either way.

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

GoodPesto,

This elderly lady is not the only issue in the street. We will call her Anna. Anna doesn't actually live in the block, but we have our own psychiatric woman (not Anna) in unit 11. We live in a psych ward here on this property. Although I have empathy and compassion for them both and it must be an awful existence, neither of them should be living here.

I have seen the police at Anna's door. I complained that no action was taken and you know what the officer said to me? He believed she was going to change her behaviour! I told the officer that the lady was long gone and beyond any hope of rehabilitation. She will never change her behaviour and will continue what she's doing. He then said it was a psych matter, not a law enforcement matter. But that is just typical hand balling a case over to someone else to deal with it. The officer suggested I call them whenever Anna was roaming the street at night and I told him you would be getting a call from me every night then, and you might get sick of me calling so much, a bit like how sick I am of tolerating this individual.

I've seen delivery drivers call the police about her. They don't call out anymore because I assume they just don't want to know about it nor want to deal with it. She must have an emergency call button in her unit because I've seen paramedics turn up and knock on her door. They ask her, are you all good? She says she's okay and they leave. I've seen a man assault her because she got to him and he walked off in a huff with his son trailing behind him, shocked.

I tend to think our street doesn't exist to the police. It's not a rural area, it's a suburb/town, near a city.

[GoodPesto]

Thanks for the info. I am sorry this is happening around your home, it is nerve-wrecking and going under your skin for sure.
I can see why the police is not doing much, as long as she is "only" armed with her cam. You're probably right they are happy to close the case and push it to another institution. Here are my ideas for this situation that might not be looking very appaeling to you because of your emotional involvement, but that could work in the long run. These suggestions are sometimes time consuming, which is again not very appaeling, but you are probably aware already that there isn't a quick fix for this without legal consequences. I am aware that people were trying a lot already, but in case there is some energy left to change this situation, here are two idea. I am assuming that the laws where you live are similar to where I live, that could be wrong of course.

1)
You do not have to tolerate her harassment, her verbal abuse or the infringement of your personal rights by having taken pictures without consent. As this is illegal but not necessarily an emergency, going to the police station to report this is a valid option. If your girlfriend reports as well, there are already two people. If you know some neighbors who would consider taking the time as well, that would be great. If official reports on this lady start piling up on their desk, there will grow a need to do something. She will be asked to say something to the reported accusations and this might be a point where it becomes clear she is not able to take part in administrative processes. If she is and things get dropped, keep reporting the assaults and attacks. You do not need to go every day, of course, but you can write the incidents down, collect them and have them and go to the station let's say once a week.
You could consider going to a police station that is not familiar with her (e.g. the closest to the one where your gf lives). They will contact the one where you live and might do nothing but pass it on, but it could be easier for you to talk to someone who is not already familiar with the situation. And sometimes things get more important to the police when things get known outside of the hot spot.
First time, I would report what happened that day (she said this, approached me like that, took a photo, etc.), not much more. This is enough and overseeable for the police as an institution. If you tell them all at once and the never ending story of it, it is more likely to be shut down due to complexity and lack of severity in their eyes.
In a nutshell: Gather a few hurt people and file charges independently and consistently so the need for the police growths to do something to lessen their paper workload.
This is not acceptable behaviour in a community wether she is sick or not.

2)
To be admitted to a psych-ward with and without consent requires that the person is a danger to herself and/or others. This is clearly the case when she is out at night the way you describe it. Even if there aren't beds available sometimes, sometimes there are and you just need to wait for the moment to appear where things come together (another incident, another check-up, a free bed in the ward). To get there and although I understand your fed-up reaction to the officer, I would have outlined his suggestion with regard to calling the authorities whenever you see her. Again: If they have to come to check on one person almost every night, their need to do something will grow to lessen their workload. When they realize that they can't get through to her and that she ends up on the streets after they have told her that she can't do that, ways for her admission will be paved within legal context. I know it sucks and maybe you can find some people to support you with calling too, but if you manage to keep it micro-chilled (short, distant, flat) it could be done in 30seconds "Hey, I was just driving by xy and there is a lady in a dressing gown in the middle of the street. I don't know what's up, but she wasn't moving aside when two cars passed and as this seems very dangerous, I wanted to do the right thing and call".

Hardest thing but worth gold might be to keep your emotions at bay whenever you're in contact with someone about her.

Wishing peace will find your neighborhood and that this woman does get the help she seems to need.

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

I appreciate your suggestions GP. I'm sure all of this has already been done, and she probably has spent time in a psych facility. They may dose her up with whatever and then she's discharged and they hope for the best until she's back again.

I live in Australia and violence against women is reported about every day within our media and every day there is another story. I want to make it clear I am not a misogynist. However, Anna being a woman most likely plays a part in her getting away with what she does. If this were an elderly man doing what she's doing, I think it would be a very different matter. A man taking photographs of women, children, for no good purpose.. that's not going to be allowed to continue, I would bet on that. You see my point? It's absolutely a gender issue as well. I know for a fact Anna has and does harass children in the street and most like takes their photograph. But because she's a woman and not a male, she is getting away with it. Our society sees women as a less dangerous gender, not incapable of committing violence altogether, but males are seen as the gender most likely to commit violence. That's the narrative our media wants the public to believe. So it plays a factor here.

The police may argue, the lady is super annoying, but she is harmless. I strongly disagree. As I mentioned in my initial post, she could potentially put someone in prison all because they hit her whilst driving because she was on the road at night and they drove off. She's the one wandering the road at night, police not doing anything to stop this. Someone ends up in prison or with a criminal record because they hit a lady who was never stopped from roaming the road and allowed to remain in the community. That's not harmless. I may hit her one day. Even just today, a random woman was walking along trying to tell her to get off the road and Anna is yelling at her, harassing her, etc. I step outside and tell the woman trying to help that she's wasting her time.

If she is in fact taking actual photographs, what is she doing with the photographs? That's not harmless. Residents have a right to come home, not have her come up to your car door and harass you and take a photograph as you go inside. That's not harmless at all. It would shit me up the wall and it does shit me up the wall. One night I got home and she came into the carpark and stood next to my car just staring at me in the dark, not saying anything at all. That's not harmless, it's creepy as fuck! But she gets away with it, because she's a woman!

[GoodPesto]

Hi Iwnrh,

you are absolutly right, this would be handled differently if "Anna" would be an "Andrew".
When I was replying to your previous post I had typed out a few sentences on the gender-issue but deleted them. It was also about your assumed gender (along the lines of "don't be shy to report this because your male and she is an elderly female") and this may amplify the dynamic although it shouldn't.
The man you described whom she got to engange and who got angry could easily be made out the perp for people who don't know the backstory. This is incredibly unfair.

I am sorry this is happening. It sounds very stressful and frightening.

Sending the best vibes to your neighborhood.

[xredshoesx]

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